Nano-structures using semiconducting materials have been attracting attention as a material well-suited for high-performance optical devices and electronic devices, because the nano-structure can improve the properties crucial to optical and electronic devices, such as electron mobility, electron-to-hole coupling ratio, and field emission characteristics.
However, since semiconducting nanostructures are manufactured only on certain substrates such as sapphire and silicon carbide, it has a problem in providing the properties required for next-generation devices, such as flexibility and transparency.
Hexagonal boron nitride is a material having a two-dimensional structure that is composed of boron and nitrogen atoms positioned in the planar hexagonal structure. Since its structure is analogous to that of graphene, hexagonal boron nitride is sometimes called white graphene.
Similar to graphene, hexagonal boron nitride has been attracting attention as a next-generation material because it has excellent physical properties such as tensile strength, flexibility, transparency, and thermal conductivity. However, hexagonal boron nitride is different from graphene in that it is classified as an insulating material, so hexagonal boron nitride can be used instead of graphene in applications requiring insulating materials.
Therefore, semiconductor nano-structures fabricated on hexagonal boron nitride enables the addition of desirable properties, such as flexibility and transparency, to the existing high-performance optical devices and electronic devices, and thus can be useful as a base material for next-generation devices.
Also, compared to the semiconductor nano-structure grown on graphene, the electrical properties of the nano-structure fabricated on hexagonal boron nitride can be used more advantageously, owing to the insulating property of hexagonal boron nitride.
However, there hasn't been much research conducted by far on the subject of growing semiconductor nano-structure on hexagonal boron nitride.